March 24, 2012

'Call her in the middle, with a double, before, wrong and home.'

I'm in the middle, myself, because I only decided at the last minute to re-read The Nine Tailors , a Lord Peter Wimsey mystery by Dorothy L. Sayers, with the Cornflower Book Group. I'm enjoying almost everything about it, as I almost always do with these books, but what I like best is how Sayers works the church bells, and bell ringing, into almost every aspect of the book. The language of bell ringing is almost incomprehensible to me, but it still (or maybe it's because of that?) seems like poetry.

Following a hint from one of Karen's commenters, I found this YouTube video that does a wonderful job of beginning to explain how it works. I love the comment near the end about the bell ringers standing in a circle, dancing with each other.

Hi, Lisa May:I think I remember Karen commenting that this book was chosen because there were people who liked the books without Harriet better than the ones with. I don't! - but I'm still enjoying this one very much, and it's making me want to re-read the others.